So, during the fight against the library cuts over the past month, one of the things I wanted to do was try to compile some of the best approaches and strategies that I’d learned in an Advocacy class while doing my Masters of Library Science, various tips from many of the very experienced library leaders across the country […]
Hopefully Saskatchewan’s public libraries will never have to go through what we just went through over the past month ever again. But I thought I’d try to document some of the various events and happenings during the multi-pronged resistance to the massive library cuts in the 2017 Saskatchewan budget (which ultimately led to the cuts being reversed […]
So, almost unbelievably, after a month of incredible pushback from all levels – grassroots activists and elected MLAs, rural and urban citizens, library staff and supporters, and numerous others across the province and beyond – the Sask Party announced that they were restoring *all* funding to Saskatchewan public libraries that was cut in the March […]
As usual, Tammy Robert has done some excellent journalism in writing about the history of libraries in the province, the parallels to arguments to earlier times when libraries were falsely attacked for being outdated or bad investments, and how the current government has long voiced support for libraries which makes their recent cuts especially nonsensical. […]
There’s a hierarchy in rural Saskatchewan… First, you lose the hospital. The grain elevators close and are replaced by an inland terminal in a bigger town down the line. You used to have a handful of churches and soon you’re down to two or one or maybe even none. The local school closes and the kids […]
The Honourable Don Morgan QC has said that combining public libraries and school libraries could be part of the solution to the drastic funding cuts imposed on Saskatchewan public libraries in the recent budget. But Mr. Morgan must know that, just as all lawyers are not the same, all libraries are also not the […]
Many public libraries have added a Value Calculator to their web site as an advocacy tool to show patrons, politicians and other interested parties just how much value they’re getting for their tax dollars. (A few systems in Saskatchewan have also enabled a feature in our province-wide circulation system that prints out “Today You Saved $xx.xx” […]
So, yesterday’s post about “MLA says Saskatchewan has too many libraries. Librarian says Saskatchewan has too many MLAs” has become my most viewed post of all-time. Within 24 hours, it’s blown away my previous record holder which, ironically, was about a random encounter I had with Brad Wall, soon after he axed the Film Tax […]
The cut to Saskatchewan’s rural library system is $3.5 million dollars. The cost of the three unnecessary MLAs added by the Sask Party before the last provincial election is $750,000 and the NDP actually ran on a platform of cutting those three plus three more which would save the province $1.5 million dollars per year. Hmm, […]
From a comment in SongMeanings.com… the song is about working class perception and how everyone thinks ‘we dont talk about love, we only wanna get drunk’ whereas in reality the working class can be intelligent and useful, a lot of writers musicians actors sports people etc come from a working class background. ‘libraries gave us […]
